No Conclusion
by x-the-rising-x
Summary: The question isn’t really did he ever love her, but whether he ever really knew her. He doesn’t know her now, as much as he would like to. So rather than trying to come up with an answer, he tries to decipher between the rain and tears on her cheeks. BL


_**A/N: **_This oneshot has been sitting on my computer for awhile, and I keep going back to edit it and get nowhere. So I decided to post it, imperfect as it may be. I know that's not the best way to write or to present work, but if I don't post it now, it will never be edited and never be worked on. 

This oneshot is basically me trying to make sense of Mark's logic, which is a daunting task, I know. And it's a different style than I'm used to working with, but I like the way it turned out. Anyway, set after 5x09. 

**No Conclusion**

She's feeling nostalgic for high school. She hasn't been in this mood for awhile, but as she drives around Tree Hill, after being stuck in the library for a good 3 hours, she realizes that she misses this town. And oddly, all of a sudden, she is jealous of her 17-year old self. The girl she always wanted to leave behind.

Now Brooke Davis is twenty-two. She's been able to drink (legally) for a year, has been able to drive for six, and if she wanted to smoke or go to war, she will have been eligible for the past four years. 

The one royalty she doesn't have (quite literally – she's also rolling in all the cash she will ever need), is the ability to love. Despite numerous claims by US Weekly and OK Magazine, Brooke Davis has not "found love in a mysterious dark-haired man" or "fallen deeply for Nick Lachey." 

To wind up at the house of Lucas Scott, her high school sweetheart, is somewhat inevitable. Nostalgia for a simpler time seems to go hand in hand with the first, and only boy she ever loved. Or, thought she loved. 

She cuts the key in the ignition, and sits in the driveway for a few minutes. One of the Tree Hill High library book copies of _An Unkindness of Ravens _had made it's way into her purse subconsciously, and is now peeking out from the fabric, taunting her. 

She prides herself on her strong-will. The power she has harnessed over the past three years to simply detach, is something she plans to not give up on anytime soon. But somehow his words keep taunting her. 

_She was fiercely independent – Brooke Davis. _

She had been touched and pleasantly surprised to hear such praise, at first at least. And then she had come to the realization that her previous belief that he would simply leave her out of the book because he was so tortured and haunted by the break-up was the trivial hope of a silly high school girl who wanted to forget her first love, but didn't want him to forget her. 

_"I read it honey, I know how it ends."_

Like hell she had read it. She skimmed the book, once, maybe twice, about a year after it was published, and clearly tuned out Lucas sick puppy-dog expressions of love to his Goldilocks. 

She hears a knock on the window, and it isn't until then, when she looks up and sees a grown-up Lucas Scott staring back at her, that she realizes it's also started to rain.

She rolls down the window. "Hi, Luke," she says simply, and he looks confused. "Just feeling a little nostalgic, I guess."

He still doesn't seem to understand, but it's then that Brooke remembers that he never really understands, and he never really gets it. 

"Late-night reading?" he asks finally, gesturing to his book, which she's placed in her lap. He's smiling that goofy grin of his that still makes him look 17, and Brooke hates that he's making her remember. 

She flips open the book to a page that has tortured her for the past few days, ever since her sobbing best friend had blubbered it out to her in front of the fire after Tric. 

As Brooke begins to read, there are many things she doesn't know. She doesn't know that after she drives away, Lucas will stand in the driveway, soaked to the core, for a good ten minutes, utterly dazed, and that it'll take more than a few shots of whiskey for him to forget what she said to him. 

"In that moment, my triumph was not a state championship, but simple clarity. The realization that we had always been meant for each other, and every instinct to the contrary had simply been a denial of the following truth. I was now and would always be in love with Peyton Sawyer."

She looks up. "It's a beautiful passage, Lucas."

She realizes that he hasn't seen her cry in a long time, and wonders where these tears are coming from. And if he hadn't been looking at her, he wouldn't even be able to tell that there are tears slipping out of her eyes, because her voice stays completely level.

"Thank you…" his words trail off, because he probably figures that she has more to say than just that. 

"I never read the book, Lucas. Not all the way through." She says it very bluntly but she figures that there is no real obligation she has to not hurt his feelings, even though it is painful to see the look in his eyes. 

"Oh."

"I just, don't really get it. Was our entire relationship a joke?"

The comment comes out of left field, and by the look on his face she can tell he has no clue what to say.

"I'm just wondering, because," she gestures to the book in her lap, "to me it seems like the entire time we were together you were in love with Peyton." 

"I never said that." He stutters across his words and is getting soaking in the rain, but Brooke doesn't even give him the opportunity to walk away, something he's done one too many times. Instead, she opens the door and steps out in the rain. 

Their much closer now, physically, although she gets that they are still words apart. She also gets that she's about 3 years too late, but for some reason tonight was the breaking point, and she just needs to ask him….

"Did you ever really love me?"

-

It's a question he's almost afraid to answer. There's a twenty-two year old woman standing in front of him, not a 17-year old girl, and he realizes he's speaking to a stranger. 

The question isn't really did he ever love her, but whether he ever really knew her. He doesn't know her now, as much as he would like to see what's behind the calm exterior of a woman who used to be so bubbly. 

Rather than trying to come up with an answer, he's trying to decipher between the tears and rain on her cheeks, and has almost forgotten the question.

-

As of now, Brooke Davis only knows the past and the present. She remembers the last time they were stuck in the rain together, and is horribly tortured by the fact that it's been a good 10 seconds since she asked him the question, and now she's afraid of the answer. 

She doesn't know that in three weeks, she'll make a decision that no one ever saw coming. That she'll decide that the ache in her heart that she gets when Jamie smiles or when Lily returns and decides to spend every waking moment with her Aunt Brooke, is not regular hormones. She'll decide that what she wants most is to be a mom, and to be a better mother than Victoria was, or ever will be.

She will ask Lucas to be the father of her child, because she'll remember a time when he rose above it all. 

_"No, look - this whole thing scares the hell outta' me, okay? But whatever you decide to do, I'll be there. And if you're not ready, then you're not ready, but if you wanna' have this baby - then so do I, and whatever it takes for me to be a good father, I'll be there. Always. I promise you. I won't let you down." _

She understands that there is no hope for the two of them, but deems it healthy to hold on to a bit of him, because she thinks that is the best way to let go. She will tell him that she wants the love of a child, not Lucas' love, and even will tell him that she wants him and Peyton to be together. 

He will still say no. 

-

She asks a different question now. 

"Why did you kiss me?"

He's confused again, god, he's always confused, so she's forced to clarify.

"That night in New York. You kissed me, and asked me to stay. Was it because you wanted me, or because you wanted to _sleep _with me."

It's a perfectly legitimate question, and she's surprised to see that this is one he can actually answer. 

"Both."

-

It's true. Cliché as it may sound, that night it seemed like an angel had swooped in and pulled him out of his slump. A brunette, gorgeous, brilliant, goddess, who had suddenly appeared after a whole year away. It was the first time in awhile that he realized he had missed her. 

She had pulled away, and he had been reminded of all the times she had offered herself to him, and all the times he had guiltily taken her. He realized in that moment that she had changed, and that she wasn't his to take anymore, and he felt at fault for thinking he owned her. 

He still thinks that a little bit of his heart broke when she left that night. 

-

"Did you ever love me Lucas? Were you ever in love with me?"

She asks him again, desperately, only this time, instead of forgetting the question, he's reminded of the last time she stood in front of him in a complete vulnerable state. 

They were standing right there, and it was the first time the words "I love you" had escaped his lips.

He knows the answer now, but he doesn't know how to tell her. Instead, he takes a hold of her arm, wet skin against skin, and steps closer to her. 

She looks scared, shocked, bewildered, and they hover there for a few seconds, their breath mingling in the short distance between their faces. 

Then she steps back, and anger creeps onto her face. 

"Just answer the fucking question!" she screams, throwing the book at him. All 225 pages of his confession of eternal love to her best friend hit his chest hard, and rip at the seams. Paper and ink mix with water, and the mangled paperback drops to the driveway with a thud that hits him in the back of his heart. 

-

As she throws the book she doesn't know that after Lucas says no to her request, she will turn to adoption. Her mother will claim that Brooke is unfit to take care of a child, and the agency will not accept Brooke. Lucas will find out somehow (he always finds these things out) and, after an unsuccessful plead to the agency to please let Brooke adopt, he will finally offer her the thing she had come to him originally for. 

Brooke will be elated, but she doesn't know that now. Now, she stands frozen in the driveway, staring at the shocked expression on Lucas' face. She doesn't know that this will be the last time she ever yells at him. 

-

He blinks and she is gone. And as he stands there, staring at the empty spot in the driveway, he is only aware of the past and the present. Right now, he doesn't know that in Brooke's 11th week of pregnancy, she'll miscarry. He will spend years grieving over a baby that he was never supposed to feel any attachment to. 

It will be raining again the day Brooke leaves Tree Hill. And he doesn't know it now, but that day will be the last time he ever sees her. She'll promise to keep in touch, but she doesn't call him once, and he doesn't keep in touch either. After a year her calls to Haley will fade away, and eventually Peyton will even admit that she has no idea what happened to Brooke. 

Lucas and Peyton will get back together right after Brooke got pregnant, but will break up after only a few months, realizing that the wounds were to deep to be mended. He will call Lindsey one day in early 2011 and tell her he misses her. 

On September 23rd, 2012, a good two years after Brooke leaves, Lucas will be happy. He and Lindsey will be engaged again, and have a son on the way, although Lucas will still feel the ache from the little girl that Brooke lost. Haley will call him at 3:47 that afternoon, crying, with only a command to open the newspaper. 

Sprawled across the Sunday Styles section will be a headline that Lucas will never forget. 

_Brooke Davis, revolutionary fashion designer, dies at 24 in drunk driving accident. _

Lucas will never remember whether he cried that day, but later in his life he will wish that the night she had showed up at his house, he had told her that there was a time when he loved her, and not just left her with an irreplaceable silence. 

Right now, Lucas Scott knows none of that. So all he does is watch her drive away. 


End file.
